Head injuries in sport have been described as an epidemic especially in contact sports like football, hockey and lacrosse. While catastrophic head and brain injuries are generally managed effectively, helmets have had little effect on the incidence of concussive injuries. In part, this is the result of helmets used in sport, recreational pursuits and industry having primarily been designed to prevent catastrophic head injuries. Head injuries resulting from direct impacts are characterized by both linear and angular accelerations of the head during the impact. Certain types of head injuries like skull fractures and intracranial bleeds are associated with linear accelerations. Impact is managed by using compliant foams and foam surrogates that are designed by primarily changing the thickness and stiffness characteristics. As a result the foams perform effectively during a very small portion of the energy absorbing range. Ideally an energy absorbing liner is engineered to absorb the greatest amount of energy during its full range of compression. Typically foams do not provide sufficient stiffness during the initial compression then work efficiently until they become too stiff and begin to transfer force to the head. As a result the capacity of the energy absorbing material is inefficient.